She was famed globally for her ear-to-bling-laden-ear grin, and who could blame her? Soon to be celebrating her 96th birthday, Her Majesty had it all.
More famous than rapidly-fading scraggy-handed Material Girl Madonna, wealthier than pneumatic Kim Kardashian, and more powerful than has-been former First Lady Melania Trump, at 95, Elizabeth II had blown her closest rivals out the water with the hand-grenade of breeding.
Sitting on one of her favorite go-to thrones in her 830,000 sq ft fuck-you mega-mansion Buckingham Palace, valued at $16 billion, a prime piece of real-estate at the smartest end of London’s prestigious Mall, Elizabeth II had one helluva lot to grin about.
Yes—she was now the richest, sassiest, most sought-after woman in the world, with her very own big-budget box-office-busting Netflix series now entering its 7th season.
Not only that, but sensational bouffant-haired Grammy-award winning top rock superstar Brian May—married to much-loved veteran actress Anita Dobson, who from 1985-1988 had played coarse-mouthed dipsomaniac Angie Watts in the legendary BBC TV soap opera Eastenders—had played her own signature tune, “God Save the Queen,” on her roof just 20 years ago.
That’s why they called her the Platinum Lady.
And that’s why, whenever she went outside, she just couldn’t stop waving fit to bust.
Left-right, left-right, left-right—and every one of those furious waves sent out this signal to the world: sure, you want what I got—but, know somethin’?—you jist can’t have it!
She was now the richest, sassiest, most sought-after woman in the world.
As her beefy, to-die-for First Footman schlepped toward her with the solid-gold shock-and-awe tea-trolley, Elizabeth II adjusted her tiara and stroked the dog.
Chief corgi Daphne licked her lips in satisfaction. Daphne had come one helluva long way since she was a dumbass puppy, last in line to be fed. Six years on, she had seen off all the other corgis in the Palace to become Numero Uno of Her Majesty, petted and fussed over by world-class A-List visitors including fuller-figured tousle-haired U.K. Premier Boris Johnson and stuck-with-a-wife-twice-his-age French President Emmanuel Macron.
The First Footman raised the mega-heritagey Tang Dynasty China teapot eight inches in the air and tilted it at an angle of precisely 38 degrees for maximum flavor. The steady stream of Lapsang souchong sizzled as it smacked the base of the cup like a tsunami.
Elizabeth took a long, luscious sip, power-walked to the main window and surveyed the throbbing scene below.
This was London, thriving metropolis, ancient-but-still-swinging home to Hollywood A-Listers and personal friends sassy Dame Helen Mirren, pointy-faced Benedict Cumberbatch, and homely Dame Judi Dench—and, yes, this mega-city was all hers!
These past 95 years, she’d worked her nuts off to get what she wanted, whatever it cost.
And now she intended to relish every last inch of it.
A knock on the door like a nuclear-charged thunderclap of fate.
A top highly-placed senior Palace source later informed me exactly what happened next. Though he—or she—had not himself been there, having rarely, if ever, stepped foot in the Palace, many years of experience of taking tea let him imagine the scene with the breathtaking accuracy of someone with a VIP top-grade front-row seat just a few streets from the main drama.
“Good afternoon, Mummy”.
Sharp as a 1,799-Karat knife with a solid gold handle inlaid with finest ebony, Elizabeth recognized the plummy, silver-tea-spoon, corncob-up-derriere voice as stemming from her florid-faced, twice-married, mega-wealthy eldest son, Charles. Also Known As Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick and Baron Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. And he never let you forget it.
“Tea, Charles?” she hissed, uncontrollably.
“Yes, please” he spat back.
It takes layers of aristocratic grooming to know how to play the royal tea-pouring game. One wrong splash and you’re roadkill.
But with 95 years experience behind her, Elizabeth could still maintain a steady hand. Clenching the Royal teapot in her bare fist, she let the afternoon beverage crash into the delicate cup in a controlled explosion of liquid flavor.
“Help yourself to milk, Charles” she sneered. That was always her way. She’d learned to leave him to do the heavy-lifting. Centuries of Royal training had taught her that when the milk was ready to be poured the two-bit aspirant heir-to-the-throne must expect to be forced into crippling servitude. Or else heaven knew what could go wrong.
After all, it was a mere five centuries before that bearded sex-crazed morbidly-obese axe-wielding hard-drinking stocking-wearing foul-mouthed bling-encrusted fashion-icon King Henry VIII had been brought up with no discipline—with the consequence that he hit town like a meteor, beheaded two of his wives, set fire to his countless counselors and detonated the Royal reputation into a thousand million little pieces.
“Thank you, Mummy” gasped her stunned son and heir, his jaw regally dropping as he nervously poured the premium-brand milk, as Elizabeth stayed sitting in her seat, enjoying her downtime, her back as straight as the flagpole on the Palace roof upon which she had infamously refused to lower the Union Jack a quarter-century earlier following the death of the hurricane-force presence that was her sizzling, firecracker, turbo-charged, yacht-cruising, swoon-inducing, Pilates-performing daughter-in-law, the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
“Another cup, Charles?” she spat out.
“Yes. Lovely. Thanks, awfully. Why not?” replied her avaricious billionaire son, determined to take a free cup of tea wherever and whenever he could find it.
Gazing out the window, she grew ever more determined to follow her dreams. Come what may, her celebrity brand would continue to expand and (continued for hundreds of pages).
Craig Brown is a columnist for the Daily Mail and the author of One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time
